The World Through Water
by Gimli and Legolas
Summary: Sometimes fantasy is better off left well-enough alone...


_Gasp. Shock. Horror. Gimli and Legolas are writing a serious story! Write it down in the history of fanfiction! Anyway, this particular story is Gimli's brain child, so be gentle. It came when she was off school one day, having unexpectedly passed out that morning- which could explain an awful lot about this.  _

_Anyway, this story could seem clichéd and boring, but please, I beg thee, at least read chapter one. It'll take about two minutes. _

_We own nothing, nor do we pretend to. Well… we do, but that's not the point. _

_Oh, and this is **book-canon **and set before the War of the Ring. A lot of research is being done. No romance, no Mary-Sue's, no non-canonities, no interfering with canon events._

**Chapter One- Reality Check**

It was Merry's idea that we should write this down, record what happened to us. She said that if anything happened, or if we couldn't get back, then we wanted to be remembered, to have what we did appreciated. We don't want to be just another mystery of the past; a pile of rotting bones in a world no one believes exists.

I suppose I shouldn't really call her Merry either, but that's what she's been to me for the last three years. Her real name is Sophie, or Sops. I've been Gimli, and Rosie has been Legolas. Stupid, I know, but it felt right, somehow, to name ourselves after Middle-earth inhabitants. It felt like we were bringing it to life, making it real.

That was before we found out that we were nearer to the truth than we thought. Of course, I had entertained the idea that all Middle-earth was a history. But it was only playing with the thought; I had never seriously believed it. Not really.

But I'm speaking in the manner of Gandalf; in riddles. I should start at the beginning. Of course, the beginning could be anywhere. Is the beginning at the Big Bang? Is it when magic first appeared? Is it with Tolkien, and his discovery of Middle-earth? Is it with my birth, me being the oldest of the three of us? Or could the beginning be that day?

I think I'll take the latter as the beginning, merely for storytelling purposes. It will be shorter. I can remember everything as vividly as if I'm seeing it now- every leaf in the tree above me, every delicate vein tracing its way across the translucent green surface. All three of us were perched up in the huge tree, which Merry had joked could turn out to be an Ent, and would start reciting poetry to us. I remember that Rosie was sitting on a branch just below me, her long legs stretched out across it, leaning against the trunk. Merry was straddling another branch above me, kicking her over-sized feet together, and leaning forward in order to talk to us. I was sitting with one arm curled around the trunk, my short legs dangling over the brook a few feet below us. I never really cope too well in trees; I always feel that I am hardly in the safest possible position. 

The bark on that trunk was fairly smooth, and there was some fungus and other indistinguishable growths surrounding the roots. The branches were numerous, which made it easy to climb, and it was shaded, as it grew alongside many other trees beside the slow running brook which meandered lazily by. There was a large, innocent-looking bed of nettles masking the opposite bank, but beyond that a large field of corn waved slightly in the slight breeze. Away to our left, the trees thinned until they vanished altogether, instead there was a pleasant clearing, where two horses were grazing; a large, mild-mannered chestnut, and a tall, proud grey. Over the fence was Kirby Castle, a red-bricked ruin which was supposedly a tourist attraction, but which I didn't find that interesting. More interesting to me was the deep, cold moat which surrounded it, and which had been the unfortunate object of many of our more interesting stunts. 

Anyway, I think I let my descriptions run away with me there. I always do that; I always want to let everyone know exactly how it was, and now it's even more important, because I just want to remember it. The day was in late July; Merry and Rosie had just broken up from college. I had broken up a few weeks beforehand, after I had finished my GCSE's. We were taking the time to chill out and relax, as we hadn't been able to do for a long time. It was late afternoon, and the weather was warm and balmy, not sticky and humid as it was wont to be in the summer, and the soft breeze kept everything refreshed. We were deciding what to do next. Merry wanted to go for a walk, but Rosie argued that it was far too hot, to which I agreed. Rosie suggested going to the farm and seeing if we could swim in their outdoor pool. I countered that, by pointing out that the farmer, and his wife and daughter were in Australia. After that, there were no more suggestions, as everything else we would think of seemed to involve doing a lot of walking.

"Hey," Rosie said suddenly. "Can you imagine what it'd be like if this tree just swallowed us all up, like Old Man Willow?"

"No thank you!" I exclaimed, holding tighter to the trunk. "It's quite welcome to eat you up, Elf, but it can wait till I've got my feet back on the ground!" Well, you didn't think my nickname was Gimli for nothing, did you?

Merry laughed, and grinned at me. "Poor little Dwarfie," she cooed. I glared at her. 

"On second thoughts, this damn tree is far more welcome to you." I told her, trying to sound threatening. She just laughed again, and aimed a kick at me. Taking my opportunity, I leapt from my seat (if that branch could be called a 'seat') and landed with a thud on the ground below. "C'mon," I called up to my two friends still playing at being birds. "Let's go somewhere at least; else I'll leave you two here and go play computer games with Sam."

A small part of me was hoping that they would decline to come down from their perch, and that I could follow up on my threat and go and play computer games in my friend Sam's air-conditioned bedroom. But alas, it was not to be.

"Okay," Rosie said simply. In one swift movement she had swung her legs round and sprung off of her branch. She landed lightly beside me, and called up to Merry to join us. Grumbling, Merry took a jump, landed hard and sat down, looking a bit surprised. I rolled my eyes as Rosie laughed; Merry can look very elegant when she wants to (which is never), but always manages to be incredibly ungainly.

By unspoken agreement we set off down the field, pausing on the way to talk to the horses. The grey, Louis, looked down his long nose at us, then turned haughtily and walked away. Dodger, however, relished the fuss, and stood with his eyes closed as we rubbed his ears and scratched his chestnut cheek. 

I don't really remember what we talked about as we walked down the long, broad grassy path that led up to the clearing at the top of the field. We must have talked about something, because I can remember Merry hitting me on the shoulder for something I said, and I retaliated by slapping her on the arm. It was just good-natured arguing, which is generally inevitable between Merry and me, and I can remember that Rosie stopped it by walking between us, but I don't recall what it was all about.

Not far from the field is a very small, rickety wooden bridge that has been there ever since I started to keep my ponies at the farm, and was probably there for fifty years or so beforehand; at least, it looks like it. It doesn't appear to be very safe, especially since it's leaning rather dangerously to one side, looking as though it might tip you into the brook at any moment, but it's attached to a sturdy pipe, which is probably the only thing keeping it up. Anyway, that's where it happened. We were all on the bridge at the same time (looking back on it, I realise how stupid that was, especially since before then we'd always gone one at a time. It must have been fate), and suddenly it seemed to vanish under our feet. I suppose it must have finally tipped under our collective weight. 

Everything was quiet, which in itself was strange. I kept listening for Rosie's voice, making some comment about irony, or for Merry's sarcastic comeback about how it must be my fault. But there was nothing; just this strange, blank silence. There was no wind, no birds, no nothing. I couldn't hear the water rippling; for that matter, I hadn't even heard the splash as I hit it. 

I blinked, and then everything seemed to distort; I'm not even sure any more about whether I even hit the water. Everything became a kaleidoscope of different colours, different images. My head seemed to spin, and I think I yelled out for my friends, but there was no sound. I didn't hear my voice. The trippy vision seemed to stop, and then darkness blacked over, and I had a sensation of falling. A roaring began in my ears, like white noise rushing past me, then there was nothing, just darkness, and falling… falling… falling…

Then nothing.

***

_Thanks for reading. If you hated it, and don't want to read anymore, that's fine. But if you are vaguely interested and do want to read more, the next chapter is already done, so it'll be up soon._


End file.
